The present invention relates to a headrest for a seat, and more particularly, to a retractable headrest for a rear automotive seat.
As is well known, automotive headrests (also known as head restraints) are extremely valuable in protecting passengers from injury in a collision, or even a sudden stop, by limiting the rearward travel of the passenger's head with respect to the passenger's neck and torso. Therefore, the vast majority of automobiles sold today have headrests installed on both the front and the rear seats for passenger protection. Headrests installed on the front seats are positioned directly behind the driver's and front passenger's heads and do not significantly impair the rearward vision of the driver, either by the driver's use of the rearview mirror or by the driver turning his or her head. When rear passengers are present, they can impair the rearward vision of the driver. However, since the rear seat headrests are positioned behind the rear passengers, the rear seat headrests generally do not significantly add to the rearward vision impairment when rear passengers are present.
On the other hand, when rear passengers are not present, fixed upright rear seat headrests continue to impair the driver's rearward vision. Therefore, it is desirable to provide rear seat headrests in an automobile that can be moved out of the driver's rearward view when rear passengers are not present, but which can be moved into a protecting position when rear passengers are present. There have been prior attempts to address this problem. For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,586,366 to Patrick, a headrest pad is maintained at an adjusted height in a low-profile prone position until inertia from a collision or sudden stop pivots an upper portion of the pad into an upright position for protecting the passenger. The Patrick design can never be completely retracted out of the driver's view.
Others have proposed headrests, generally for the rear seats, where the headrest lies in a retracted position in an indented or sunken portion of the rear deck when not needed, but which can be pivoted out of the sunken portion into an upright position to protect a passenger. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,511,180 to Klaus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,403 to Dieckmann, U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,166 to Andres and U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,456 to Barros. While these headrest designs do retract out of the driver's vision when not in use, they are not particularly attractive or aesthetic in the retracted position and do not provide an integrated or hidden appearance in the retracted position. Similarly, other headrest designs are known which rotate from the ceiling or from the side into an extended position and can be at least partially retracted when not in use. These designs cannot fully retract out of the driver's rear vision.
Another proposal has been for a fixed construction combination headrest/roll bar that is maintained in a generally upright orientation but which can be retracted into a stowage cavity positioned behind the seat when not in use and extended upward out of the stowage cavity by a drive mechanism such as a motor driven rack and pinion when passenger protection is required. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,816 to Lutze. This headrest/roll bar is quite large and relatively complex. Still others have proposed use of inflatable headrests that are maintained in a low-profile deflated position when not required but which can be inflated into an upright position when passenger protection is required. See U.S. Pat. No. 4,123,104 to Andres and U.S. Pat. No. 4,865,388 to Nemoto. Neither of these designs truly provides an aesthetic hidden appearance in the retracted position.
Generally, these designs move into the extended position either upon the occurrence of an impact to the vehicle or by requiring a vehicle passenger to perform some manual operation to either manually move the headrest into position or to trigger a drive system to move the headrest into position.
A retractable headrest is desired that overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art.